Finnish glögi rarely has citrus peel as a flavor component like its Central European cousins, but cinnamon, cardamom and cloves are essential. I added a few spices that aren’t all that traditional – dried mint, pink peppercorns, and star aniseed – just because I personally love them, and they did add a certain freshness to the flavor. I also cut down on the amount of cloves, since often there’s a whole tablespoonful of them in a similar recipe, and I think their taste can get wildly overpowering. I would use the recipe below as a starting point and tweak it to your own tastes.

The kind of juice that is used as a base also has an important role – we use a red currant juice concentrate that Heikki’s mother has made from her own berries, and it lends quite an authentic color and flavor to the drink. Grape juice or even lingonberry or cranberry would surely be worth trying out. This spice infusion would probably be lovely added to some warmed up apple juice, or black currant juice for the sneezy days, and I can see it spicing up my cup of tea even. Finns often add some almonds and raisins in their glögi mug, but I prefer mine without.

This is what I used:

• 5 slices of fresh ginger
• 4 cloves
• 1 teaspoon crushed cardamom seeds
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon (or 1 stick)
• 2 teaspoons pink peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon dried mint
• 1 star aniseed
• a pinch of allspice
• 3 dl water

I placed all the above in a small cooking pot, brought to a brisk boil, and lowered the heat so that the mixture was barely bubbling. Now I covered the pan and let the spice mixture simmer for half an hour, and then sieved it through a cheese cloth into a small jug.

To make a cup of glögi, I use about 3 tablespoons of the spice infusion, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of red currant juice Heikki’s mom has made, and 1 and 1/2 dl of hot water. It all depends on how sugary the juice is. This recipe yields about 2 dl of the spicy mixture, which I would say is enough for about five glögi portions. I store what’s left over in a small bottle in the fridge. An alcoholic version could be made with half red wine and half fruit juice, or by adding a little bit of vodka (or another spirit of choice) in the glögi mug.

We hadn’t eaten black-eyed peas for a while, so the peas and rice did taste extra delicious. Anni commented how the taste of the black-eyed peas combine the sweetness of chickpeas and the flouryness of regular beans. I think that’s an apt description!

Here’s what I used:

• 2,5 dl dried black-eyed peas
• a piece of kombu
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• about 2 teaspoons of cumin
• about 1,5 teaspoons of coriander
• 2 chipotles in adobo sauce, finely chopped
• 2 dl tomato sauce, passata style
• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

About two hours before I started to cook, I quick soaked the peas: I rinsed them, put them in a bowl filled with boiling water, and covered the bowl. (Obviously, they could’ve been soaked overnight too, but since I forgot to do it, I had to quick soak them.) Then, two hours later, I began with boiling the black-eyed peas. I threw soaking water away, put the peas in a kettle over low heat, added the kombu and plenty of boiling water.

While the peas were simmering, I prepared the sauce. First, I put a frying pan over medium high heat, added the onion, and fried it until quite brownish. I kept stirring the onion a lot so that it wouldn’t burn. Then I added the garlic, cumin, coriander and the chipotle, and fried them about half a minute, stirring continuously. I poured the tomato sauce in the pan, stirred, lowered the heat, and waited until the black-eyed peas were done. I drained the peas, removed the kombu, and added the peas into the frying pan. I mixed the sauce and the beans, added the salt, and checked the taste.

I use white whole wheat flour all the time now that it’s finally available here, and it works very nicely in heavier baked goods like cookies. Maybe because of all the sugar and a touch of vinegar, these blondies don’t taste whole-wheaty at all, quite the opposite – not that whole-wheaty is necessarily a bad thing, just not what I usually aim at when making dessert. Peanut butter is just a slight side note in the taste – I am not a huge fan of sweet peanutty things, but here it adds a little something important. These were good right after baking and excellent straight from the fridge later on.

The Dry:

• 2 and 1/2 dl white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

The Wet:

• 3/4 dl coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 2 dl whole cane sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar

The Egg-Replacer:

• 2 tablespoons gram (chick pea) flour
• 3 tablespoons soy milk

The Chocolate:

• a handful of chopped dark chocolate, 85%

First I preheated the oven to 175 degrees Celsius, chopped the chocolate, and sprayed a glass baking pan with a bit of olive oil. I used a small, 15 X 20 cm baking pan, and the result was fudgy and kind of sticky in the center. Very delicious, but a larger pan would yield more of the caramelized edges that were probably my favorite part of this dessert.

To make the batter, I first mixed the wet, the dry, and the egg-replacer ingredients in separate bowls. The chickpea flour is a bit lumpy so it’s important to mix well. Now, I combined everything and stirred with a fork just so that there were no dry lumps visible. I folded in the chocolate, poured the batter in the pan, and baked for 25 minutes. For the last 5 minutes I covered the pan to prevent too much browning – it might be wise to check after the first 15 minutes and cover when necessary.

This is what we used:

• Bunch of fresh chard (enough to cover two baking sheets)
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Japanese seven spice (shichimi togarashi)
• olive oil for spraying

First we set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then we prepared the chard: washed the leaves, removed the stems, and cut the remaining parts into bite-size pieces. Now we crumpled a baking parchment, spread it on the baking sheet, and sprayed some olive oil on it. Then we covered the baking sheet with the chard pieces, taking care that individual pieces didn’t overlap, and sprayed them with some olive oil. We ground the nutritional yeast, salt and seven spice in a mortar, and sprinkled half of the spice mix on the chard bits. We made two sheetfuls of chips, so the rest of the spice mix was for the second batch.

Now we baked the chard for 7 minutes. They burn really easy, so we started watching them after 5 minutes or so. When they were dry and crunchy, we took them out of the oven. They are best eaten right out of the oven, since they lose their crispness fairly quickly. We devoured two sheetfuls of them in no time – their airy texture and spicy taste is quite addicting!

Our simple lunch salad consisted of a bunch of home-grown kale, lollo rosso and lettuce, with fried tofu cubes and cashews. I added a pinch of cayenne to the tofu along with the usual dashes of soy sauce and balsamico to get a bit of heat to complement the sweet-tart blueberry dressing. Forest blueberries are not as sweet as cultivated blueberries, so the amount of sugar might need tweaking depending on the type of berry that is used.

The Blueberry Dressing:

• 1 and 1/2 dl fresh blueberries
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon whole cane sugar
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
• plenty of freshly ground black pepper

I mixed the dressing with our immersion blender and that’s it. This made enough to dress two huge lunch portions, and would probably yield four portions of a more moderate size.

I recently found a wonderful organic smoked rye flour. It’s called riihikuiva which means barn-dried in Finnish, and has an amazingly deep and rich smokey flavor. If there’s no smoked flour available, I bet a pinch of smoked paprika with regular rye flour would work just as well. We served these muffins plain, hot from the oven with our evening tea, and I bet muffin halves spread with some vegan cream cheese would be pretty tasty as well.

Dry Mix:

• 2 dl white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 dl smoked rye flour (or another smoked flour, or medium rye flour)
• 1/2 dl oat bran
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar (muscovado)
• 1 teaspoon each: salt, dried basil, chilli flakes

Wet Mix:

• 1 and 3/4 dl plain unsweetened soy yoghurt
• 3/4 dl cold-pressed sunflower oil (or olive oil)
• 1/2 to 3/4 dl water
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed

Add-ins:

• 15 kalamata olives, chopped
• 3 sundried tomatoes in oil, rinsed and chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons capers
• 1 spring onion, sliced

I first preheated the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and sprayed 8 muffins cups with olive oil.

I stirred together the wet and dry mixes in separate bowls and then combined the two, being careful not to overmix. I had to add a tablespoon or so more water because the batter was too dry, but this always depends – it’s best to start with 1/2 dl water and add more as needed. I folded in the olives, sundried tomatoes and capers, and spooned the batter in the muffin cups. Then I sprinkled the muffins with some onion slices, and baked them for 17 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin came out clean.

The recipe makes enough for three huge carrots cut into sticks – it might seem like there’s not enough dip, but there is. Since the flavor is pretty intense, I wouldn’t consider this a party food. I think this is best enjoyed as a snack, or maybe a light meal for the rare warm summer days when we don’t feel like staying in the kitchen for more than five minutes. I’ve also made this dip with natural peanut butter and that’s all good, but the cashew magic makes it super delicious.

The Dip:

• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons natural roasted cashew butter
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon brown rice vinegar

I just stir everything together with a fork until smooth and serve with a pile of carrot sticks.

The amount of chili can of course be scaled up or down, to suit everyone’s tastes. The seasoning recipe makes just about enough to season 1 dl of unpopped corn kernels, or less if we want a more intense flavor.

Basic Pop Corn:

• 3/4 to 1 dl pop corn kernels
• 1 and 1/2 to 2 tablespoons canola oil

We heat the oil in a cooking pot on high heat and add one corn kernel to see if it’s hot enough – when the kernel pops, it’s time to add the rest. Then we cover the pot, shake it a little, and let the kernels pop. When the popping slows down, we remove the pot from heat, pour the pop corn in a serving bowl, and toss in the seasoning.

The Seasoning:

• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon amchoor (dried mango powder, also known as amchur)
• 1/3 teaspoon hot chili powder
• 1/3 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/3 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

We just stir all the ingredients together with a fork – the amchoor powder tends to get a bit lumpy, so it’s important to be thorough with this.

The cherry chocolate I used for decoration was a nice addition, and I’m thinking fresh cherries might work as well – although they’d have to be very ripe and sweet not to be overshadowed by the flavor of the mousse itself. I’d actually added a dash of cinnamon in my coffee before brewing it, and while not really noticeable, it might have added a hint of depth to the flavors.

The Chocolate Mousse (serves 4):

• 350 grams (one package Mori-Nu) firm silken tofu
• 3 tablespoons very strong and cold coffee (stove-top espresso with a bit of cinnamon)
• 3 tablespoons whole cane sugar
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
• 150 grams nice semi-sweet chocolate
• chocolate shavings for decoration, optional

I mixed the tofu, coffee and sugars with our immersion blender until very very smooth, absolutely no lumps were visible. Meanwhile, Heikki melted the chocolate in a water bath. Then he ladled the chocolate in the tofu bowl and I whisked away until thoroughly combined.

We poured this mixture in 4 ramekins and refrigerated for an hour, and I decorated two portions with cherry chocolate shavings, which added a a bit of textural contrast as well. The two remaining ramekins were saved for the next day and were even better.

This is a very simple method for bread baking – no need to worry too much about kneading or shaping. This bread keeps well for a few days, stored in a paper bag that is wrapped in a kitchen towel.

This is what we used:

• 3 dl wheat bran
• 1 1/2 dl spelt flour
• 2 dl white wheat flour
• 3 dl whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds, crushed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 dl water, warmed to about 37 °C
• 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
• 25 g fresh yeast
• for decoration: about 2 teaspoons caraway seeds

I started by mixing the bran, the flours, salt, and the crushed caraway seeds in a bowl. Then I mixed the sugar with the water, and stirred with a fork until the sugar was diluted. Now I diluted the yeast into the water, crumbling it first with my fingers and then stirring with a fork. I poured the liquid into the bowl with the dry ingredients, and mixed it quickly into a dough. We spread the dough on a baking parchment placed on a baking sheet, and flattened with our hands until it was an evenly-shaped square, about 30cm x 30cm. Then we let it raise for 40 minutes.

The oven was set to 225 degrees Celsius. Before putting the bread in the oven, I sprayed it with some water and sprinkled caraway seeds over the top. I baked the bread for 15 minutes on the middle rack of our oven. Now the bread had browned just a little bit on the top, and I removed it from the oven and put it on a wooden rack to cool. Once it had cooled enough that I could touch it, I cut it into squares. We immediately enjoyed it with some soup.